Discussion:
Developers don't use the Semantic Web because they shouldn't
ajs6f
2018-11-22 16:17:16 UTC
Permalink
I've expressed this opinion before in other venues, and it's gone over like a lead balloon, so why not again? :grin:

The "middle third" of developers don't generally use SemWeb technologies for the same reason that the "upper third" and "lower third" don't; they have no reason whatsoever to do so.

SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing boundaries (between disciplines, between organizations, even between technical stacks or individual data sources). Most developers don't do that for a living. They work within relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single app for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website that caters to one organization's users, or a management system for one business unit. RDF tooling delivers no value to such teams and costs a fortune compared with simpler approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!

On this view, technical changes like bnodes for predicates or better support for list constructs aren't to the purpose. (Whether or not they are good ideas on other grounds is a different question, of course.) But to my eye this view does disclose (at least) two potential avenues towards real change:

• I know of little OLAP work that is currently done with open semantic technologies, although OLAP frequently brings together multiple sources of data and the kinds of queries that people use for that work could benefit enormously from semantic lifting. It seems to me that that could change, if the perception of poor performance and intractable constructions changed. (I'm not making any argument about the _actual_ performance of semantic web tooling, which is of course a complex question that I have rarely heard discussed usefully without specific examples. The perception, however, is pretty clearly pretty awful.) This could mean work to clarify and publicize the real potential for performance, and to improve it.

• I believe that semantic technologies might really benefit so-called "data lake" approaches in which data is quickly ingested and indexed without normalization and then transformations are applied more-or-less dynamically to query or process different sections of data together. Again, the common factor is the need to bring together disparate data sources and the immediate obstacle (or at least, _an_ immediate obstacle) is perceived performance.

To be clear, I'm in no way opposed to technical improvements! (If nothing else, as a committer for Apache Jena, I'm excited to make our own work easier and to make it easier to involve and excite others.) And as someone who (substantially) makes his living applying linked data ideas for cultural heritage and scientific research, I want these ideas to spread widely!

I see some pretty hopeful developments, like technologies that make it easer to use semantic tech in "big data" settings be they open [1] or as a service [2] or the beginnings of work on using the power of statistical methods for semantic lifting [3].

All is all, my claim is that working to get a great bulk of developers using semantic tech may not the right problem to work on. Working to get the much smaller number of developers with really on-point needs using (or able to use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this community is truly fitted.

---
Adam Soroka
Research Computing : Office of the CIO : the Smithsonian Institution

[1] http://sansa-stack.net/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/
[3] http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/machine-learning-internet-things-semantic-enhanced-approach-1
Michael Brunnbauer
2018-11-23 10:13:03 UTC
Permalink
hi

+1 to everything Adam said.

Triples (EAV) are a well known antipattern in the world of relational databases. The situations where they actually make sense are rare. It would be a mistake to pitch RDF to the average developer without some big caveats.

Computers and Internet used to be fun. But suddenly people are doing serious stuff with them. Very serious stuff. Meanwhile the people enabling all this continue piling layer after layer on the tower in their game of Jenga. Recent events have shown that even the lowest layer of that tower cannot be trusted.

RDF is deceptively simple. You start with a simple idea and end up with a complex mess. Or as they say about EAV: "It gives you enough rope to hang yourself". I don't think this will be popular in the world of tomorrow - when the tower has fallen.

Or maybe I'm just getting old :-) Bruce Schneier thinks along the same lines - but then he is old too.

Regards,

Michael Brunnbauer
Post by ajs6f
The "middle third" of developers don't generally use SemWeb technologies for the same reason that the "upper third" and "lower third" don't; they have no reason whatsoever to do so.
SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing boundaries (between disciplines, between organizations, even between technical stacks or individual data sources). Most developers don't do that for a living. They work within relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single app for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website that caters to one organization's users, or a management system for one business unit. RDF tooling delivers no value to such teams and costs a fortune compared with simpler approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!
??? I know of little OLAP work that is currently done with open semantic technologies, although OLAP frequently brings together multiple sources of data and the kinds of queries that people use for that work could benefit enormously from semantic lifting. It seems to me that that could change, if the perception of poor performance and intractable constructions changed. (I'm not making any argument about the _actual_ performance of semantic web tooling, which is of course a complex question that I have rarely heard discussed usefully without specific examples. The perception, however, is pretty clearly pretty awful.) This could mean work to clarify and publicize the real potential for performance, and to improve it.
??? I believe that semantic technologies might really benefit so-called "data lake" approaches in which data is quickly ingested and indexed without normalization and then transformations are applied more-or-less dynamically to query or process different sections of data together. Again, the common factor is the need to bring together disparate data sources and the immediate obstacle (or at least, _an_ immediate obstacle) is perceived performance.
To be clear, I'm in no way opposed to technical improvements! (If nothing else, as a committer for Apache Jena, I'm excited to make our own work easier and to make it easier to involve and excite others.) And as someone who (substantially) makes his living applying linked data ideas for cultural heritage and scientific research, I want these ideas to spread widely!
I see some pretty hopeful developments, like technologies that make it easer to use semantic tech in "big data" settings be they open [1] or as a service [2] or the beginnings of work on using the power of statistical methods for semantic lifting [3].
All is all, my claim is that working to get a great bulk of developers using semantic tech may not the right problem to work on. Working to get the much smaller number of developers with really on-point needs using (or able to use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this community is truly fitted.
---
Adam Soroka
Research Computing : Office of the CIO : the Smithsonian Institution
[1] http://sansa-stack.net/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/
[3] http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/machine-learning-internet-things-semantic-enhanced-approach-1
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 München
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
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++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
Adrian Walker
2018-11-23 16:29:14 UTC
Permalink
Michael,

There is a drastic simplifcation. One can just use RDF as relational
triples and apply Apt-Blair-Walker [1] or similar semantics, as in the
examples [2]. That makes things easier for SQL programmers (of which
there are many!). It also moves institutional boundary crossings into the
application layer, where they can be more easily be explained.

Cheers, Adrian

[1] Towards a Theory of Declarative Knowledge, K. Apt, H. Blair and A.
Walker). In: Foundations of
Deductive Databases and Logic Programming, J. Minker (Ed.), Morgan Kaufman
1988.

[2] www.executable-english.com/demo_agents/RDFQueryLangComparison1.agent

Adrian Walker
Executable English LLC
San Jose, CA, USA
860 830 2085
https://www.executable-english.com
Post by Michael Brunnbauer
hi
+1 to everything Adam said.
Triples (EAV) are a well known antipattern in the world of relational
databases. The situations where they actually make sense are rare. It would
be a mistake to pitch RDF to the average developer without some big caveats.
Computers and Internet used to be fun. But suddenly people are doing
serious stuff with them. Very serious stuff. Meanwhile the people enabling
all this continue piling layer after layer on the tower in their game of
Jenga. Recent events have shown that even the lowest layer of that tower
cannot be trusted.
RDF is deceptively simple. You start with a simple idea and end up with a
complex mess. Or as they say about EAV: "It gives you enough rope to hang
yourself". I don't think this will be popular in the world of tomorrow -
when the tower has fallen.
Or maybe I'm just getting old :-) Bruce Schneier thinks along the same
lines - but then he is old too.
Regards,
Michael Brunnbauer
Post by ajs6f
I've expressed this opinion before in other venues, and it's gone over
The "middle third" of developers don't generally use SemWeb technologies
for the same reason that the "upper third" and "lower third" don't; they
have no reason whatsoever to do so.
Post by ajs6f
SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing boundaries
(between disciplines, between organizations, even between technical stacks
or individual data sources). Most developers don't do that for a living.
They work within relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single
app for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website that caters
to one organization's users, or a management system for one business unit.
RDF tooling delivers no value to such teams and costs a fortune compared
with simpler approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!
Post by ajs6f
On this view, technical changes like bnodes for predicates or better
support for list constructs aren't to the purpose. (Whether or not they are
good ideas on other grounds is a different question, of course.) But to my
eye this view does disclose (at least) two potential avenues towards real
Post by ajs6f
??? I know of little OLAP work that is currently done with open semantic
technologies, although OLAP frequently brings together multiple sources of
data and the kinds of queries that people use for that work could benefit
enormously from semantic lifting. It seems to me that that could change, if
the perception of poor performance and intractable constructions changed.
(I'm not making any argument about the _actual_ performance of semantic web
tooling, which is of course a complex question that I have rarely heard
discussed usefully without specific examples. The perception, however, is
pretty clearly pretty awful.) This could mean work to clarify and publicize
the real potential for performance, and to improve it.
Post by ajs6f
??? I believe that semantic technologies might really benefit so-called
"data lake" approaches in which data is quickly ingested and indexed
without normalization and then transformations are applied more-or-less
dynamically to query or process different sections of data together. Again,
the common factor is the need to bring together disparate data sources and
the immediate obstacle (or at least, _an_ immediate obstacle) is perceived
performance.
Post by ajs6f
To be clear, I'm in no way opposed to technical improvements! (If
nothing else, as a committer for Apache Jena, I'm excited to make our own
work easier and to make it easier to involve and excite others.) And as
someone who (substantially) makes his living applying linked data ideas for
cultural heritage and scientific research, I want these ideas to spread
widely!
Post by ajs6f
I see some pretty hopeful developments, like technologies that make it
easer to use semantic tech in "big data" settings be they open [1] or as a
service [2] or the beginnings of work on using the power of statistical
methods for semantic lifting [3].
Post by ajs6f
All is all, my claim is that working to get a great bulk of developers
using semantic tech may not the right problem to work on. Working to get
the much smaller number of developers with really on-point needs using (or
able to use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this
community is truly fitted.
Post by ajs6f
---
Adam Soroka
Research Computing : Office of the CIO : the Smithsonian Institution
[1] http://sansa-stack.net/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/
[3]
http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/machine-learning-internet-things-semantic-enhanced-approach-1
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 MÃŒnchen
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
++ https://www.netestate.de/
++
++ Sitz: MÃŒnchen, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B MÃŒnchen)
++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++ GeschÀftsfÌhrer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
Michael Brunnbauer
2018-11-23 16:40:24 UTC
Permalink
Hello Adrian,

even without trying to understand what you wrote I know it's a sales pitch
for your product - because you've done it so often over the past years :-)

You should keep your advertisements off the lists or they might ban you.

Regards,

Michael Brunnbauer
Post by Adrian Walker
Michael,
There is a drastic simplifcation. One can just use RDF as relational
triples and apply Apt-Blair-Walker [1] or similar semantics, as in the
examples [2]. That makes things easier for SQL programmers (of which
there are many!). It also moves institutional boundary crossings into the
application layer, where they can be more easily be explained.
Cheers, Adrian
[1] Towards a Theory of Declarative Knowledge, K. Apt, H. Blair and A.
Walker). In: Foundations of
Deductive Databases and Logic Programming, J. Minker (Ed.), Morgan Kaufman
1988.
[2] www.executable-english.com/demo_agents/RDFQueryLangComparison1.agent
Adrian Walker
Executable English LLC
San Jose, CA, USA
860 830 2085
https://www.executable-english.com
Post by Michael Brunnbauer
hi
+1 to everything Adam said.
Triples (EAV) are a well known antipattern in the world of relational
databases. The situations where they actually make sense are rare. It would
be a mistake to pitch RDF to the average developer without some big caveats.
Computers and Internet used to be fun. But suddenly people are doing
serious stuff with them. Very serious stuff. Meanwhile the people enabling
all this continue piling layer after layer on the tower in their game of
Jenga. Recent events have shown that even the lowest layer of that tower
cannot be trusted.
RDF is deceptively simple. You start with a simple idea and end up with a
complex mess. Or as they say about EAV: "It gives you enough rope to hang
yourself". I don't think this will be popular in the world of tomorrow -
when the tower has fallen.
Or maybe I'm just getting old :-) Bruce Schneier thinks along the same
lines - but then he is old too.
Regards,
Michael Brunnbauer
Post by ajs6f
I've expressed this opinion before in other venues, and it's gone over
The "middle third" of developers don't generally use SemWeb technologies
for the same reason that the "upper third" and "lower third" don't; they
have no reason whatsoever to do so.
Post by ajs6f
SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing boundaries
(between disciplines, between organizations, even between technical stacks
or individual data sources). Most developers don't do that for a living.
They work within relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single
app for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website that caters
to one organization's users, or a management system for one business unit.
RDF tooling delivers no value to such teams and costs a fortune compared
with simpler approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!
Post by ajs6f
On this view, technical changes like bnodes for predicates or better
support for list constructs aren't to the purpose. (Whether or not they are
good ideas on other grounds is a different question, of course.) But to my
eye this view does disclose (at least) two potential avenues towards real
Post by ajs6f
??? I know of little OLAP work that is currently done with open semantic
technologies, although OLAP frequently brings together multiple sources of
data and the kinds of queries that people use for that work could benefit
enormously from semantic lifting. It seems to me that that could change, if
the perception of poor performance and intractable constructions changed.
(I'm not making any argument about the _actual_ performance of semantic web
tooling, which is of course a complex question that I have rarely heard
discussed usefully without specific examples. The perception, however, is
pretty clearly pretty awful.) This could mean work to clarify and publicize
the real potential for performance, and to improve it.
Post by ajs6f
??? I believe that semantic technologies might really benefit so-called
"data lake" approaches in which data is quickly ingested and indexed
without normalization and then transformations are applied more-or-less
dynamically to query or process different sections of data together. Again,
the common factor is the need to bring together disparate data sources and
the immediate obstacle (or at least, _an_ immediate obstacle) is perceived
performance.
Post by ajs6f
To be clear, I'm in no way opposed to technical improvements! (If
nothing else, as a committer for Apache Jena, I'm excited to make our own
work easier and to make it easier to involve and excite others.) And as
someone who (substantially) makes his living applying linked data ideas for
cultural heritage and scientific research, I want these ideas to spread
widely!
Post by ajs6f
I see some pretty hopeful developments, like technologies that make it
easer to use semantic tech in "big data" settings be they open [1] or as a
service [2] or the beginnings of work on using the power of statistical
methods for semantic lifting [3].
Post by ajs6f
All is all, my claim is that working to get a great bulk of developers
using semantic tech may not the right problem to work on. Working to get
the much smaller number of developers with really on-point needs using (or
able to use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this
community is truly fitted.
Post by ajs6f
---
Adam Soroka
Research Computing : Office of the CIO : the Smithsonian Institution
[1] http://sansa-stack.net/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/
[3]
http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/machine-learning-internet-things-semantic-enhanced-approach-1
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 München
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
++ https://www.netestate.de/
++
++ Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++ Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 München
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
++ E-Mail ***@netestate.de
++ https://www.netestate.de/
++
++ Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++ Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
Henry Story
2018-11-23 16:48:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Brunnbauer
hi
+1 to everything Adam said.
Triples (EAV) are a well known antipattern in the world of relational databases. The situations where they actually make sense are rare. It would be a mistake to pitch RDF to the average developer without some big caveats.
Computers and Internet used to be fun. But suddenly people are doing serious stuff with them. Very serious stuff. Meanwhile the people enabling all this continue piling layer after layer on the tower in their game of Jenga. Recent events have shown that even the lowest layer of that tower cannot be trusted.
RDF is deceptively simple. You start with a simple idea and end up with a complex mess. Or as they say about EAV: "It gives you enough rope to hang yourself". I don't think this will be popular in the world of tomorrow - when the tower has fallen.
I don't know. I see lots of articles that show that graph databases are growing such as this one
https://hub.packtpub.com/2018-year-of-graph-databases/ <https://hub.packtpub.com/2018-year-of-graph-databases/>

Here is a picture from that article.
Post by Michael Brunnbauer
Or maybe I'm just getting old :-) Bruce Schneier thinks along the same lines - but then he is old too.
Regards,
Michael Brunnbauer
Post by ajs6f
The "middle third" of developers don't generally use SemWeb technologies for the same reason that the "upper third" and "lower third" don't; they have no reason whatsoever to do so.
SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing boundaries (between disciplines, between organizations, even between technical stacks or individual data sources). Most developers don't do that for a living. They work within relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single app for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website that caters to one organization's users, or a management system for one business unit. RDF tooling delivers no value to such teams and costs a fortune compared with simpler approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!
??? I know of little OLAP work that is currently done with open semantic technologies, although OLAP frequently brings together multiple sources of data and the kinds of queries that people use for that work could benefit enormously from semantic lifting. It seems to me that that could change, if the perception of poor performance and intractable constructions changed. (I'm not making any argument about the _actual_ performance of semantic web tooling, which is of course a complex question that I have rarely heard discussed usefully without specific examples. The perception, however, is pretty clearly pretty awful.) This could mean work to clarify and publicize the real potential for performance, and to improve it.
??? I believe that semantic technologies might really benefit so-called "data lake" approaches in which data is quickly ingested and indexed without normalization and then transformations are applied more-or-less dynamically to query or process different sections of data together. Again, the common factor is the need to bring together disparate data sources and the immediate obstacle (or at least, _an_ immediate obstacle) is perceived performance.
To be clear, I'm in no way opposed to technical improvements! (If nothing else, as a committer for Apache Jena, I'm excited to make our own work easier and to make it easier to involve and excite others.) And as someone who (substantially) makes his living applying linked data ideas for cultural heritage and scientific research, I want these ideas to spread widely!
I see some pretty hopeful developments, like technologies that make it easer to use semantic tech in "big data" settings be they open [1] or as a service [2] or the beginnings of work on using the power of statistical methods for semantic lifting [3].
All is all, my claim is that working to get a great bulk of developers using semantic tech may not the right problem to work on. Working to get the much smaller number of developers with really on-point needs using (or able to use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this community is truly fitted.
---
Adam Soroka
Research Computing : Office of the CIO : the Smithsonian Institution
[1] http://sansa-stack.net/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/
[3] http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/machine-learning-internet-things-semantic-enhanced-approach-1
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 MÃŒnchen
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
++ https://www.netestate.de/
++
++ Sitz: MÃŒnchen, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B MÃŒnchen)
++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++ GeschÀftsfÌhrer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
Michael Brunnbauer
2018-11-24 11:49:16 UTC
Permalink
Hello Henry,
Post by Henry Story
I don't know. I see lots of articles that show that graph databases are growing such as this one
https://hub.packtpub.com/2018-year-of-graph-databases/ <https://hub.packtpub.com/2018-year-of-graph-databases/>
That something is hyped does not mean it is suitable for everyone. Take
Machine Learning as an example. The problem of asking the right question and
providing enough good ground truth for it does not seem to go away. Again,
only the biggest players have the necessary amount of data and expertise.

It looks spectacular When ML models play video games but IMO that's just
procedurally generated ground truth. How is this applicable to real world
problems?

All these technologies have their use cases - let's be realistic about when
they are suitable and when not.

Also thanks to Martynas for that article from the Atlantic. I think formal
proofs of correctness will become important in the future - also by way of
systems that are deliberately decidable / not Turing complete. It's often a
PITA to work with them but the added security they provide will be appreciated.

Regards,

Michael Brunnbauer
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 München
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
++ E-Mail ***@netestate.de
++ https://www.netestate.de/
++
++ Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++ Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
Christian Chiarcos
2018-11-24 16:28:54 UTC
Permalink
Am Fr., 23. Nov. 2018 um 17:48 Uhr schrieb Henry Story <
Post by Henry Story
I don't know. I see lots of articles that show that graph databases are
growing such as this one
https://hub.packtpub.com/2018-year-of-graph-databases/
Here is a picture from that article.
[image: Databases comparisons on DBEngine]
The same article puts some emphasis on Cypher, etc. Maybe, we should look
deeper into a comparison with that, then? Personally, I don't find Cypher
more readable, more intuitive, or better documented than SPARQL, nor its
advantages over SPARQL much convincing. Some thoughts on both technologies
are given under
https://neo4j.com/blog/rdf-triple-store-vs-labeled-property-graph-difference/.
Most differences are merely notational, but some observations are worth
considering. This includes ids for properties (well, we can do this with
reification, of course), the inability to qualify instances of relations
(reification, again), arrays, etc. In the end, "We also know that
publishing RDF out of Neo4j is trivial, which is the same with importing
RDF." (Some students of mine actually tried to work with the RDF interfaces
of Neo4j a few years ago and found them to be dissatisfying -- but in
principle, that statement holds. I didn't touch Neo4j since then, though.)

Best,
Christian
--
Prof. Dr. Christian Chiarcos
Applied Computational Linguistics
Johann Wolfgang Goethe UniversitÀt Frankfurt a. M.
60054 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

office: Robert-Mayer-Str. 10, #401b
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Michael Brunnbauer
2018-11-23 17:48:39 UTC
Permalink
Hello Jürgen,
are you somehow implying that the avg. dev. has any clue about relational
databases?
No.
did you ever realize that humans have a tendency to use EAV on a daily
basis, some also call this "speaking"..
You're stretching the sense of EAV quite far. Would this entail anything
relevant to the discussion?
with respect to antipattern, you must be talking about technical
implementation details, right?
No. Just google "eav antipattern".
confess: you haven't seen many a database, right? :-)
Depends on your idea of many. I did not count them. Probably created at
least a dozen relational schemas and had a look at some more. If this is what
you're aiming for: Yes I'm not a database expert.

Regards,

Michael Brunnbauer
--
++ Michael Brunnbauer
++ netEstate GmbH
++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++ 81379 München
++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89
++ E-Mail ***@netestate.de
++ https://www.netestate.de/
++
++ Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++ Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
Martynas Jusevičius
2018-11-23 21:18:41 UTC
Permalink
I think we should stop considering (non-SW) developers as the
end-users of the SW technology. They are not; the real end-users are
domain experts, researchers, data analysts, entrepreneurs etc.

The idea that "everyone can code" and "everyone should learn to code"
because everyone will be writing software in the future is quite
silly, if you consider a long-term perspective.

A few quotes that illustrate this:
“I’m not sure that programming has to exist at all. Or at least
software developers.” - Bret Victor,
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/
(can't recommend this article enough)
"In the future apps will be programmed in models not code" - Norm
Judah, https://in.pcmag.com/microsoft/112748/in-the-future-apps-will-be-programmed-in-models-not-code-mic

In other words, programmers as a group is destined to shrink, because
they are constantly replaced by new (more) generic self-service
software platforms, be it https://webflow.com or
https://powerapps.microsoft.com or something similar.
Of course, there will still be a need to develop those platforms
themselves, but that number of developers is pretty small compared to
the total.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be great more people could develop with
RDF. But I think the more interesting and important direction is those
generic platforms, and the technologies that enable them. That is what
I am focusing on at least.

Martynas
atomgraph.com
Post by ajs6f
The "middle third" of developers don't generally use SemWeb technologies for the same reason that the "upper third" and "lower third" don't; they have no reason whatsoever to do so.
SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing boundaries (between disciplines, between organizations, even between technical stacks or individual data sources). Most developers don't do that for a living. They work within relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single app for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website that caters to one organization's users, or a management system for one business unit. RDF tooling delivers no value to such teams and costs a fortune compared with simpler approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!
• I know of little OLAP work that is currently done with open semantic technologies, although OLAP frequently brings together multiple sources of data and the kinds of queries that people use for that work could benefit enormously from semantic lifting. It seems to me that that could change, if the perception of poor performance and intractable constructions changed. (I'm not making any argument about the _actual_ performance of semantic web tooling, which is of course a complex question that I have rarely heard discussed usefully without specific examples. The perception, however, is pretty clearly pretty awful.) This could mean work to clarify and publicize the real potential for performance, and to improve it.
• I believe that semantic technologies might really benefit so-called "data lake" approaches in which data is quickly ingested and indexed without normalization and then transformations are applied more-or-less dynamically to query or process different sections of data together. Again, the common factor is the need to bring together disparate data sources and the immediate obstacle (or at least, _an_ immediate obstacle) is perceived performance.
To be clear, I'm in no way opposed to technical improvements! (If nothing else, as a committer for Apache Jena, I'm excited to make our own work easier and to make it easier to involve and excite others.) And as someone who (substantially) makes his living applying linked data ideas for cultural heritage and scientific research, I want these ideas to spread widely!
I see some pretty hopeful developments, like technologies that make it easer to use semantic tech in "big data" settings be they open [1] or as a service [2] or the beginnings of work on using the power of statistical methods for semantic lifting [3].
All is all, my claim is that working to get a great bulk of developers using semantic tech may not the right problem to work on. Working to get the much smaller number of developers with really on-point needs using (or able to use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this community is truly fitted.
---
Adam Soroka
Research Computing : Office of the CIO : the Smithsonian Institution
[1] http://sansa-stack.net/
[2] https://aws.amazon.com/neptune/
[3] http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/machine-learning-internet-things-semantic-enhanced-approach-1
David Booth
2018-11-25 20:46:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by ajs6f
. . .
SemWeb technologies show their strength when crossing
boundaries (between disciplines, between organizations, even
between technical stacks or individual data sources). Most
developers don't do that for a living. They work within
relatively tightly-focussed areas, like building a single app
for mobile phones that works off a single API, or a website
that caters to one organization's users, or a management
system for one business unit. RDF tooling delivers no value
to such teams and costs a fortune compared with simpler
approaches. Why would they use it? They shouldn't!
I think that's overly pessimistic. I think there are *many*
more applications in between those two extremes that *could*
benefit from RDF *if* it were substantially easier to use.
Post by ajs6f
. . .
All is all, my claim is that working to get a great
bulk of developers using semantic tech may not the right
problem to work on. Working to get the much smaller number
of developers with really on-point needs using (or able to
use) semantic tech is a better task, and one for which this
community is truly fitted.
I disagree. While I agree that making RDF accessible to
the middle 33% may be a bit of a stretch goal, I think it is
nonetheless a worthwhile target. Even if we fall short and
"only" make RDF accessible to the top 33% it would still be
a vast improvement over the current situation. Furthermore,
any progress we make toward easier RDF will benefit *all*
RDF teams -- not just the middle 33%.


David Booth

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